Public Meeting Regarding Bedford Borough's
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Public Meeting Regarding Bedford Borough’s Local Plan & Dennybrook PLEASE ATTEND! Tuesday 17th August at 7.30pm in Colmworth Village Hall, MK44 2JX Our planning consultant James Tipping of Parker Planning will be available to answer questions and hear your voices. Please bring your questions to the meeting. Consultation response to Dennybrook You should have received a summary leaflet in the post from Bedford Borough Council entitled “Local Plan 2040”. It describes 4 outline proposals for housing development. If you have not received a leaflet please contact 01234 718 070 to request one. You can also request paper consultation forms. As you are aware, we are working together as a community to protect our rural parish in response to this proposed housing development stretching over 700 acres of farmland. Thanks to all the generous donations from residents we have been able to commission a planning consultancy, Parker Planning to help write our objection and mitigation statement. They will respond to the Parish Council on 20th August but we would like residents to start writing letters now. You can always amend your response later if you wish – up to the deadline of 3rd September. We believe it is vital that as many residents as possible respond to the consultation before the deadline on 3rd September. The Parish Council have been granted an extension until 17th September but this does NOT apply to residents so please respond before 3rd September. There are TWO consultations on which you can respond and you can give similar answers to both if you wish. 1. The Draft Local Plan 2040. Here you can respond about where you think housing and jobs should be created eg. in a new settlement, in the urban area, along the A421, or dispersed around the Borough in proportion to settlement size. Several options have been selected as the preferred ones by Bedford Borough Council but others are available in the Development Strategy Topic Paper – there are links to this in the Local Plan https://www.bedford.gov.uk/planning-and-building/planning-policy-its-purpose/local-plan- review/ 2. The Call for Sites. Here you can respond about any of the 440 sites that were submitted by landowners for development. The site submissions can be viewed using the map listed at the bottom of the Local Plan Review page above. Click on the relevant site in blue on the map, click on the link that is shown and choose the “Site Assessment” tab. You may wish to respond about the Dennybrook site here for example https://bedford.oc2.uk/form/977, other sites in our parish, Twinwoods https://bedford.oc2.uk/form/883 or Little Barford https://bedford.oc2.uk/form/907 and why you think they are suitable or unsuitable. You can respond to as many of these as you like. Everyone has a voice and your opinion can really make a difference. We have compiled some examples below which you may choose to use to help structure your response. Please do not feel you have to include every heading but please do decide what is important to you personally and to future generations. It is best to respond online but if you do not have access to the internet you can write to: Planning Policy Team Bedford Borough Council Borough Hall Cauldwell Street Bedford, MK42 9AP Our main objective is to protect our rural community from becoming another town the size of Biggleswade. The draft local plan shows a settlement at Wyboston with 2,500 homes but these 2,500 homes are the first part of a vision for a new town called Dennybrook. Taylor Wimpey have prepared a vision document for this site which includes 10,800 homes – which is similar in size to Biggleswade. Bedford Borough Council are very clear that the settlement of 2,500 homes by 2040 would be the first phase of a much larger development of up to 10,800 homes. Please feel free to speak to one of your councillor representatives or visit our parish website for further information. www.staploe-pc.gov.uk Response to the Local Plan Option 2a focusses on the urban area south of Bedford. Options 2b, 2c and 2d all include a new development either at Dennybrook or at Little Barford or both. Challenging the process: • The Borough’s issues and options paper in August 2020 showed the brown option as urban development on brownfield sites with a large brown development over the whole of our parish. There is no brownfield land in our parish – it is all classed as open countryside. The Parish Council feel that this was a flawed consultation. The urban development option was the most popular choice in this consultation and the popularity of the urban option in the issues and options paper has been an important influence in developing the options selected by the Borough Council. • The Borough have presented 4 options 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d in their summary document. There is just one small statement saying that people can comment on the other 6 options or present their own solutions. We don’t believe it is sufficiently clear that other options are available • We believe that the Local Plan is misleading in that it mentions 2,500 homes at Dennybrook up to 2040 when the developers vision for the site is for nearly 11,000 homes in the longer term. We believe this should be made clear in the draft plan. • We believe the Borough should be challenging the housing numbers. The Borough is building houses at more than 3 times the national average. The Council could make a strong case to government that they should update the formula for assessing housing need to take account of the most recent (2018) ONS data rather than using the 2014 data. For example it could put forward twin track scenarios, one based on the 2014 data the other based on the 2018 data. Suggested Preferred Options • 2a – we believe that the urban area is the preferred option because urban development is more sustainable than rural. This is borne out by Bedford Borough Council’s own sustainability appraisals. Development within the urban area performed best particularly in relation to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, promoting town centres, encouraging physical activity, providing for residents’ needs and access to community services, and reducing the need to travel and promoting sustainable modes of travel. New stations south of Bedford are planned and the A421 has capacity for additional traffic. • Government planning policy says that brownfield sites should be selected in preference to greenfield sites and that development must recognise “the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, and the wider benefits from natural capital and ecosystem services – including the economic and other benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land” and that “Where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer quality land should be preferred to those of a higher quality”. A definition is provided: “Best and most versatile agricultural land: Land in grades 1, 2 and 3a of the Agricultural Land Classification.” (National Planning Policy Framework). The land at Honeydon / Wyboston is all grade 2. There are other sites available which include a lot of brownfield land eg. Twinwoods and much of the site at Little Barford is grade 3 agricultural land so we believe these are more suitable. • Therefore if the urban area cannot sustain all the development required then a small new settlement at Twinwoods on brownfield land should be chosen. It does not flood, it has no major watercourses and it is distinct from other settlements so there would be no loss of identify for existing settlements. There have been problems on the A6 for years – a new settlement would provide the infrastructure funding to resolve the issues. Bedford Borough Council were in favour of building the East West rail station in the middle of Bedford so they now need to provide those in the north of the Borough with the means to access the station. Resolving the issues on the A6 would do this. • Alternatively a small settlement at Little Barford would be much closer to the new East West rail station and to the main St Neots station, and the new A428 link road. Dennybrook Objections • It is a purely greenfield site. There are sites containing a significant proportion of brownfield land available eg. Twinwoods and around the urban area. • It is on grade 2 (good quality) agricultural land and so development of this land is against government policy • It will not benefit Bedford town centre – everyone will go to St Neots • There would be insufficient segregation between St Neots and the new development – there would be a risk of “urban sprawl”. There could also be a risk of St Neots coalescing with Bedford in the future if this large development went ahead which would not be good planning policy. • Flooding. There are 5 watercourses which feed into the Ouse just upstream of St Neots from the Dennybrook area. These are all known to flood and St Neots has flooded many times in recent years. • Highways – many of the roads in the Dennybrook area are single track with high banks and sharp bends. They are unsuitable for large volumes of traffic or for HGV’s and there are many roadside nature reserves along these roads so it would be difficult to widen them without destroying valuable wildlife habitats. • Listed historic buildings within the site or in view of it eg. St Denys Church, Colmworth, Chestnuts, and Dairy Farm Cottage in Honeydon and Tythe Farm).